


How Do You Trust Me?

by queercapwriting (queergirlwriting)



Series: Where's Your Head At? [38]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Angst, But also, F/F, Here goes, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Peter Parker - Freeform, anyway, carol x maria angst, i mean it's like, i'm sorry i couldn't help myself, minor Sam Wilson - Freeform, minor kamala khan, minor talos, still?, which i guess goes without saying but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 16:53:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queergirlwriting/pseuds/queercapwriting
Summary: Carol wonders how Maria can trust her, after all this time, when she came back with a new name, a new uniform, and fire coming out of her fists.I wrote this listening to Shattered by Trading Yesterday, because I am utter trash.





	How Do You Trust Me?

"How do you trust me?" Carol whispered against Maria's skin. She was trembling, already, with restraint. Trembling, already, trying to make sure she didn't break the woman that she left with the new strength she had, the new -- and somehow, the same old -- fire in her skin.

She could -- and had -- destroyed entire battle fleets with her body.

She could -- and had -- done so many horrific things, with her body.

"Carol," Maria sighed, her voice holding only reverence, only longing.

Which Carol still couldn't comprehend, not really.

Because Maria had said she was the most powerful woman she'd ever known, before. Before.

But powerful then had meant something different than powerful meant, now.

Powerful now meant that entire fleets of intergalactic imperialists knew to cower when she -- armed with nothing but her own body, the same body that Maria now wanted on top of her, the same body that Maria now wanted all over her -- came flying their way.

And she remembered, now, after everything, both lives that had been crammed in her head. 

Her stolen life -- her own life -- as Carol Danvers, her brothers and her father, her panic attacks and Maria's steady hands and flight school and Monica, little Monica, their baby, their world.

And the life that had erased that life, six years of being convinced that she had been wronged, being convinced that she was on the right side of genocide, being convinced that she was only one thing: dangerous.

And now she'd come home, home to Earth, home to Monica and home to this woman -- this miraculous woman -- and Maria somehow trusted her to strip her clothes off without getting burned, to push her back onto their bed without getting concussed, to...

It wasn't anything they hadn't done before. 

But it still made Carol marvel, every single time.

Because every time she left, she came back with more blood on her hands. 

"You saved my people. My family," Talos wanted to convince her, but it was Mar-vell, really, Maria's piloting, really. Monica's faith, really.

"You've rescued more than you've ever killed," Sam Wilson had tried to tell her, but his eyes were tired, and she knew there was blood in his ledger, too.

"You literally save planets. Every day," Peter Parker had told her, in awe, in the midst of one of his endearing rambles, meaning it as a compliment. But she saw the shadows forming behind his eyes, because he, too, was starting to understand the horrific power of this life.

"I wouldn't be me without you," Kamala Khan had told her, eyes wide and too young and too old at the same time.

"You'd be better," Carol had whispered, but she didn't think Kamala had heard her. She wasn't entirely sure she'd wanted her to.

"Hey. Where's your head at?" Maria tilted Carol's head back gently.

Maria's fingers were buried in Carol's hair, Carol on her knees, worshipping Maria from the waist up, where she had unbuttoned the entire front of that little denim dress from entire lifetimes ago.

Maria guiding Carol to look up at her, positioned like this, felt like praying.

It felt like the only praying she'd ever done, and the only praying she'd ever care to do.

"Like I said," Carol croaked. "I don't understand why you trust me."

Maria bit her lip absently, and Carol watched her chest rise and fall in a long, thoughtful sigh.

"Tell me, Carol Danvers, why I shouldn't."

As she spoke, Maria pulled Carol off her knees and sat them both down on their bed, shifting to hold both of Carol's hand in one of hers. She used her free hand to tuck an errant wave of hair behind Carol's ear. Her fingertips traced Carol's cheek as she waited for her to answer.

"I could lose control," Carol tried.

"Have you ever? Since that bastard stopped using 'self-control' as a way to keep you in check?" 

Carol couldn't help but smirk. She might be disgusted with herself just enough to know that she wasn't, any longer, the woman Maria fell in love with. 

But Maria certainly was still the woman Carol had fallen in love with. That, and so much more.

"No ma'am," she sighed, pursing her lips. Maria's eyebrow arched at the suggestion, but they both left it hanging in the air. For the moment.

"Maria, the things that I've done --"

"Carol, we both joined the United States Air Force. You know the things that the United States Air Force has done? That we would have done, if we'd been allowed to fly combat?"

Carol gulped and somehow both nodded and shook her head. "But that's never why you signed up. You wanted to fly. To save lives, not take them."

"Which is exactly why you signed up, Danvers. Don't you dare rewrite your history. Our history, because that was the two of us together."

Carol's hand tightened around Maria's, and she ran her other hand absently up and down Maria's bare thigh.

"I know. I know, I do, and I'm not trying to..."

"Then what are you trying to do?"

"Get you to understand." Carol almost stood, but Maria held her hands fast, with a pointed look on her face.

A look that reminded her that Carol wasn't the only powerful human in the room.

"To understand what, Carol?" Maria's voice was softer, now, more forgiving, at the apologetic look on Carol's face.

"That I've... every time I come home to you, Maria, there's more blood on my hands, and I... I don't want to..."

She tried to pull her hands away from Maria's body. Maria held them close, again.

"What? Infect me? You're not the only one in our bed that's taken lives, Carol, and Lord knows I can't ever begin to imagine the things you've seen. The things you've had to do. But killing isn't why you're out there, Carol. Protecting is. This planet has an entire team of superpowered egos running around protecting it, and even that's not enough sometimes. The entire rest of the galaxy has... you. Do you understand that?"

"I try to."

"So why the hell wouldn't I trust you?"

Carol screwed up her face in the picture of innocence. "Because... sometimes when I have bad breath in the morning, I don't get up and brush my teeth before I try to kiss you?"

Maria's smirk unfolded before she could hide it. "Mmm, that is a punishable offense."

Carol's eyes flashed and she cocked her head. "Is it?"

"Sure is," Maria leaned in, still smiling.

And this time, when they kissed, Carol let herself breathe.

Let herself be loved, and let herself think that maybe, she deserved it.


End file.
